


Aquila Spiritus, Aquila Anima

by Tenukii



Category: Hellsing
Genre: F/M, Hellsing Ultimate OVA, Post-Canon, Ripley Scroll references, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-25 15:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17124341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenukii/pseuds/Tenukii
Summary: The Count finds his Countess; the Bird's spirit finds his soul.  Or, Integra becomes a vampire (because of course she does).





	1. Chapter 1

_In the Sea withouten lees_  
_standeth the birde of Hermes_  
_eatinge his winges variable_  
_and maketh himselfe full stable_  
_when all his feathers be from him gone_  
_he standeth still here as a bone_

When he came to her, she was sitting up in bed and reading.  The shadows behind her bed loomed over her, and she spoke without lifting her eye from the page.

“I ordered you to rest below.”

He laughed, exultant.  She hadn’t changed.  Not at all.

“But I _am_ , Master,” he crooned.  The shadows slid back down the wall, crawled over the floor, and sprung into the air where they took the shape of a man.  A wide, toothy smile spread over the blackness of his face.  “I’m down there right now.  _Resting_.”

“You are ‘everywhere and nowhere.’  Right.  I see that you plan to milk that excuse for all it’s worth.”  Still she did not lift her eye to look at him.  Oh she _was_ still the same, his dear Master.  Seeing her like that calmed a hunger within him which blood could never satisfy.

He waited, a man-shaped void, until she relented and looked over her book at him.

“What do you want, Alucard?  I know you’ve been fed.”

At the sound of that name, red eyes blinked into view over the smile; then the whole avatar stood beside her bed, all black and red, all hair and eyes and mouth.

“To see you.  I want to see you,” Alucard said, and he had the privilege of witnessing a flicker of surprise cross her face before she could repress it.  Ancient, she’d called herself.  Ancient!  Barely past fifty and still beautiful.  Despite what she believed, she remained the woman he’d known.  A few wrinkles, lighter hair, a missing eye. . . how could she have thought those things would repulse him?  _Him!_

_You have some vanity in you after all, my Countess.  You wished to remain young for me.  You flatter me, in wanting me to find you beautiful._

“Well.  You have seen me, so you can go now,” she announced, and she looked back down to her book.  With her head bent, her hair and the shadows obscured much of her face from him.

“Are you ordering me to go, Master?” Alucard purred.  “Or are you merely pretending that you want me to do so. . . Integra?”  When she did not answer him, his smile widened, and he sat down on the edge of the bed, beside and facing her.  Her jaw clenched.

“You have some nerve,” Integra growled, yet she still refused to look at him again.  Only last night, he had allayed all her doubts and made all his intentions clear. . . and then the dawn had come, and for that whole day he had been in her presence only long enough to receive her orders:

_Rest.  Drink what they bring you.  Strengthen yourself._

_Stay below._

His Master had banished him to his old domain, which had survived the mansion’s near destruction and which, apparently, she had maintained and kept ready for his return.  After sending Alucard below, Integra had hidden herself from him above, in the light and in her work.  Well, she hadn’t changed in that way either—she’d always done that when she wanted him out of her way.

Alucard tried another tactic: “There is no reason to send me away, my Master.  I need no more rest, for I am ready to serve at your command once more.”  Receiving no response, he added, “Although. . . it seems you have carried on quite well without me.”

“You gave me little choice in the matter,” muttered Integra.  “But I did not carry on alone.  I have Seras.”

“Yes, our little police girl.  How she’s grown up—you must have such pride in her, as I do.  But do you mean to say that she is a fitting replacement for _me_?  Are human hearts so fickle that you really did forget me?”  Alucard had meant only to tease her, yet Integra’s slender hands clenched her book hard enough to wrinkle the pages.

She hissed, “ _Monster_.  I’m fickle, am I, because I continued to perform my duties, because I did not wait  for you?”  Finally, _finally_ she lifted that lovely blue eye back up to him, and he reveled in the disdain it held for him.  Every time he roused passion in her, even if it came in the form of anger, he counted it a victory.

“I suppose three decades are but a moment for you, but for humans, for me—ages!” Integra snarled.  “I had you by my side so briefly—thrice that long, I spent without you.  And you expected me to _wait_.”

 _But you **did** wait, Integra, you waited in the way that mattered._  He had known it the very instant her blood fell upon his tongue, and so he smiled brilliantly at her ire.

“I am sorry for taking so long, but you know my reasons,” Alucard reminded her as he placed his hand over hers and pried it off the book.  When Integra huffed and tried to pull her hand free, he only closed his fingers tighter and murmured to her, “I felt your faith in me.  It was the beacon drawing me onward—leading me back to you.  When your faith began to waver, that’s when the way home got slower, and more difficult.”

Integra’s blue glare did not falter, but the fury in it softened as he spoke.  When he had done, she told him, “My faith in you never wavered, Alucard—it was my hope that began to fade.  I never considered that you would betray me.  I knew you could not.  Yet I feared that I could not hold out long enough.  I feared I would die before you returned.”

Alucard closed his glowing red eyes and sighed out a breath from deep within him.  “You trusted in me only because you knew I must obey your last command.”

 _Don’t leave me!_   No matter where he had gone, no matter whom he’d become, he’d remembered that desperate cry.  The times he came close to forgetting his own self and drowning in another’s life, he’d hear Integra’s voice and claw his way to the surface, back towards her—but not because she was his Master.

And now Integra managed to surprise him, for she gave a harsh laugh and retorted, “Such dramatics!  You think your Master trusts only in the leash that binds you to her, hmm?  So you believed everyone who called you Hellsing’s dog.”  He felt her free hand on his hair, petting him like he was that very thing.  He grinned once more, pleased.

“That never bothered me, Integra.  For there are two kinds of dogs—the one which cowers and obeys its master from fear, obeys because it must.  And the other which strains at the leash and pricks up its ears in eagerness for its master’s next command.  There is pride in being that sort of dog, which obeys out of respect and love.”

Integra’s hand froze upon his hair, and Alucard opened his eyes to see that her cheeks had flushed, as they had done so rarely even when she was a child.

“Alucard. . . .”

“My Master.”  He leaned his head into her touch and turned it so that her hand touched his cheek.  “My Integra.  Forgive me, will you?”

“All right, all right, I forgive you!” she grumbled.  “Insufferable nuisance.”

Alucard captured the hand upon his cheek; then he brought both hands to his mouth and kissed them.  He’d fully intended the gesture to be flamboyant and, yes, dramatic, but once he tasted her skin, the kisses became real.  He covered the backs of her hands and her fingers with them, then spread her hands and caressed her palms open-mouthed.

“ _Alucard!_ ” she snapped, as if to bring him to heel like the dog he claimed to be, but her hands trembled.

“So I have your forgiveness—now tell me your decision!” he mumbled against her skin.

“My—decision?  What do you—ah!”  He had sucked her left thumb into his mouth and coiled his tongue around it.  He could smell the blood pulsing just below her skin, in the blue vein which ran down from her thumb to her wrist.

So easy to nick that vein with the sharp tooth resting against it.

Alucard flicked his red gaze up to her face as he slowly and deliberately drew his head back and released her hand from his mouth.

“Your decision,” he repeated.  “You’ve had enough time— _ages,_ you said.  Don’t tell me you never thought about it.”

Integra had regained control of her voice by the time she retorted, “Thought about _what_?”  She glowered at him when he bared his teeth in another smile.

“You know.  Which you would choose when I returned.  Or ‘if’ I returned, if you like.”  Alucard paused, admittedly for effect, though Integra looked annoyed rather than impressed.  Finally, he asked, “Will you remain human?  Or not?”

Integra gaped at him.

“Well?” he prompted.

Integra’s lower lip quivered the slightest bit, but then she exploded, “Alucard, how—how _dare_ you presume to ask me a question like that!”  She yanked her hands free and slapped him right across his face, yet went on ranting at the same time: “After you tried your damnedest to take my blood less than a day ago!”  Alucard threw back his head and cackled with laughter.

“Like I had the slightest chance of succeeding!” he crowed before calming himself.  “But to appease you, I’ll ask your forgiveness for that too.  I could not help myself—I was starved, for blood and for you.”

“Hmph,” Integra snorted.

Alucard went on, “Now I have better control of myself, and I also know you _have_ made your choice.  When I tasted those precious drops of your blood last night, I knew.  But I want to hear you speak it.”

“You want me to speak it.  You mean, you want me to say, ‘Yes, drink my blood, turn me into a monster like you!’” she cried.  “How can you wish that upon me, when you’ve told others to retain their humanity?  When I’ve heard you say so many times that you want to die!”

“Because I am selfish,” replied Alucard.  His honesty appeared to surprise her, even though she knew full well how blunt he could be.  “I want you with me for more than the rest of your human life.  True, that should be at least another thirty years—but as you said, thirty years is but a moment for me.”

“ _Why?_   Why should you want more time than that, when my death will bring you freedom?” Integra demanded.  “I have no heir—there will be no more Hellsings!  You will never have another master.”

Alucard laughed again, this time with the stunning gentleness he showed so rarely.  “Integra.  I would rather serve you for all eternity than exist a moment without you.  You took my heart in your hands the day we met, and you closed your pretty fingers around it the moment I realized you were no longer a child but had become a woman.  My poor tired heart that only a human hand may stop. . . .  If you truly do wish to live out the rest of your days as a human, I will not begrudge you that.  I will serve my Master gladly.  I only ask that you promise me one thing: when you feel your death approaching, you will kill me so that I won’t suffer the loss of you.”

Integra almost never wept, yet now Alucard saw tears brimming in her eye.  He lifted his gloved hands up toward her face, but she flung her arms around his shoulders before they reached her.

“Alucard!” Integra gasped into his hair.  As he folded his own arms around her, Alucard finally experienced the glorious sensation of her body pressed close to him, her hands clinging to him, her lips on his skin.  She pressed her mouth to his temple and murmured, “Alucard, my dear Count.  My love, my love.”

He laughed and whispered in her ear, “I knew it.  You’re still a virgin—you waited for me.”

“Oh, you’re so sure _you’re_ the reason?” she taunted, breathless though she was.  “Maybe it’s only that I never wanted to have anyone else.”

“Anyone _else_ —so you admit that you wanted me.”

“So arrogant,” Integra sighed fondly.  She attempted to draw back, but Alucard held her to him tightly.

“I know that you love me, and I know that you remained pure so you could take your rightful place as my Countess when I returned to you,” he insisted.  “Now, here I am, back for you to take however you’ll have me: as your servant or as your partner.  If my tardiness, or some other failing, has changed your mind and convinced you I am not worthy of you, so be it.  But tell me now, Integra!  Make your choice, and then never look back!”

He framed it like that, like he was too impatient to wait another moment for her decision, though she had waited a third of her lifetime for him.  Far better to appear impatient than afraid!  She’d feared he wouldn’t return before she died, and he’d chastised her for it.  Yet ever since he’d slipped away from her in three million pieces, he had feared the same: that Integra would die and be lost to him forever, or worse, that she would choose another lover so that Alucard’s bite would do nothing but make her a mindless ghoul.

_I can make peace with your rejection and serve you gladly until you end my existence—but I cannot continue to exist in limbo, without knowing if I have any hope or not!  So choose, Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing!_

“Kiss me, Alucard,” demanded Integra.  “Kiss me now, like this.”

He loosened his hold on her and took her face in his hands instead.  She regarded him as sternly as ever, with her lips pressed tight together so that the new little lines around her mouth creased.  Alucard smiled.

“Your first kiss, Sir Integra?”

Her eye flashed, and she snapped, “If you want an answer to your damned question, quit teasing me and—!”  He’d leaned forward and kissed her mid-rant, covering her lips with his and pushing his tongue into her open mouth.

How warm and sweet her mouth was—even sweeter because no one else had tasted it!  She remained stunned for a few seconds before trying to reciprocate.  She was clumsy with inexperience, and Alucard wanted her all the more for it.  He drew her back into his arms and kissed her nearly senseless before breaking their lips apart.

“Now,” he breathed, “give me my answer.”

She closed her eye, but only briefly.  When it had opened and fixed on his, Integra said, “Take my blood, offered to you of my free will and without duress.  Make me your equal, Alucard—Vlad Dracula!”

\--

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

“Haah—!”  Integra awoke with a gasp, and her eye opened to dawn breaking through the large window across from her bed, where she lay alone.

_A dream.  I had a terrible dream._

She pushed herself up by her arms and swung her legs off the bed.  The marble floor felt like ice under her bare feet.

_I had a wonderful dream._

She frowned at the conflicting relief and sorrow she felt at the memory of it.  It hadn’t been real, she hadn’t become the very thing she was sworn to hate.  Oh but it hadn’t been _real!_   He hadn’t. . . he wasn’t. . . _there_.

She shook her head with a smile at her own foolishness.  _Like I’m sixteen again, with a schoolgirl crush on a monster.  He always did say I’d never grown up._

Integra went to the window and looked out at the sun’s fingers pushing their way past the trees as it rose.

_It’s a beautiful sunrise, isn’t it?_

Not her own voice in her thoughts.  His.

“Mine,” Alucard said aloud from somewhere behind her.  Probably gathering himself from some shadow or another to startle her.  He’d always liked to do it when she was a child, scaring the shit out of her like that.  Even when her reflexes got better and she’d spin around and shoot him.  Sometimes she’d thought he liked it _more_ when she shot him.

But as she got older—fifteen, eighteen, twenty—Alucard played games with her less and less often.  In their last year together, he hadn’t done it at all, at least not that she could remember.

_Or maybe I’ve forgotten. . . .  My memory is not what it once was._

“Your memory is _fine_ , Integra.  Stop pitying yourself.”

The intrusive mind-reading, that was new.  He’d never been that blatant about it before, or held conversations with her thoughts.

_Do you miss playing games?  You always tried to be so serious, but I believe you had fun.  Do you know how to have fun anymore, Integra?_

Funny, she couldn’t tell if that thought came from Alucard, or from herself.

“It’s a beautiful sunrise, isn’t it?” he repeated, aloud and right behind her.

“Yes,” she replied.

“But wouldn’t it be even more beautiful if you viewed it with both eyes wide open?” he taunted, right in her ear.  Integra gritted her teeth and was about to give him an elbow in his ribs, but then she felt hands in her hair.  She didn’t know what he was doing until his fingers found the catch to her eyepatch’s strap.

“Don’t you _dare_ —Alucard, no!” Integra shouted—too late; he’d pulled the eyepatch off and tossed it aside.  Integra bent her head with a cry and tossed her hair over the left side of her face.  “You _bastard._ ”

Alucard laughed at her, cupped his gloved right hand under her chin, and tilted it up so she faced the window again.  With his left hand, he combed her hair back from her face.  _Both eyes wide open._

Integra stared as the sun hefted itself upward and turned the few clouds around it to orange and pink.  She put her hand to her face, closed her right eye and still saw the sun, closed her left and felt her eyelid slipping over her eyeball beneath it.

Alucard laughed again and crooned, “You even forgot your glasses and never noticed!  But it’s all clear, isn’t it?  You can see everything near and far, and farther than far.”  She turned her head sharply to check, and yes, her glasses lay on her nightstand.  She put them there at night while she slept, although she wore her eyepatch to bed.

“You won’t have to wear that to bed anymore,” Alucard whispered, “or anything, for that matter.  I’ll be able to see your beautiful clear eyes—and everything else.”  This time, Integra did elbow him, hard, before she turned to glare up at him.

“You’re assuming I’m going to bed with you?  Idiot!” Integra growled.  Alucard grinned even though he had a hand to his side where her elbow had connected.

“So bony!” he cackled.  “I’ll have to fatten you up before we do it, or you’ll leave me bruised!”

“ _Idiot!_ ”  But Integra’s mind was really elsewhere.  She held her hands up and studied them.  No more wrinkles, no more prominent veins or thin skin.  And her hair—even in the oblique dawn light she could tell that the color had grown richer, from silver back to blond.

“Alucard. . . .”  She looked up, and he was smiling at her: the pretty smile, not the crazy one.  His eyes were gentle, familiar despite the strange pinkish tint they’d never had before.

_It was not a dream, was it?  You really did drink my blood._   She spoke to him in her mind, and he responded.

_It was not a dream.  I drank your blood and turned you into a monster.  Are you sorry, Integra?_

She put a fingertip to one of her canine teeth and felt its sharpness.

_. . . I don’t know.  Am I really young again?  Am I—beautiful?_

He chuckled and shook his head.  _No, you aren’t young again.  You **look** young again, you’ll **feel** young.  And you have always been beautiful.  So are you sorry?_

“It doesn’t matter if I’m sorry,” Integra muttered aloud.  Communicating with him mind-to-mind had begun to overwhelm her.  “It’s done now.  I must. . . adjust.”

“Yes, you must—and remember, you chose this.”

“I know that!” she snapped and stalked a few paces away from him.  “I remember.”

_She remembered what now seemed so like a dream: all the things he’d said to make her admit her weakness; his deep kiss to her mouth; and then. . . ._

_Lying on her side with him behind her, pushing her hair back to expose her neck, closing her eyes.  Him warm against her back as he kissed her neck, licked it, smelling her skin and her blood just beneath it.  His teeth sharp through her skin—it hurt as much as she’d expected, yet his moan when he drank from her chased the pain from her mind.  She could feel how hard he was when he rubbed up against her, but he didn’t even try to undress her.  He just drank, and drank, and drank._

Integra finally said, “I don’t regret it.  You were correct—I chose this fate a long time ago.”  When she turned back to Alucard, he came towards her and dropped down on one knee suddenly.  Integra hid her surprise by observing, “I’m not your master anymore.  You don’t need to bow.”

“You are my beloved Master, and I your servant.”  He gazed up at her and, taking her hand, kissed it before continuing, “Even now, you take responsibility for your decisions. That’s how I knew at the first that you were my Master—and how I know now that you always will be, Integra.”

Integra stared down at him for an instant, then pulled her hand free.  Bending down, she took his face in her hands.  _Only one of his many faces,_ she reminded herself as she studied it: his skin so white against her darker fingers, his irises crimson but fading to fuchsia at the edges, his lips not smiling but still parted to show those vicious teeth.  He was beautiful and horrible at the same time, but she’d seen him look far, far uglier.  Gazing at some of his faces was like gazing into the pit of hell.

_And I love all of them, all of you—even when you’re being an idiot._

Alucard grinned and laughed like a hyena.

“My princess!” he cried in between cackles.  “Once my princess, now my No Life Queen!  You are truly magnificent!”  He grasped her hips and pulled her down onto his knee, but she kissed him first, before he could capture her mouth.  Integra thought she was a little better at it than the last time, although Alucard did things with his tongue that made everything but the present moment become a blur.  She clenched her fingers into his hair to hold him still as she devoured his mouth.

_You want me, don’t you, Integra?  All of me—but especially my blood._

That hadn’t even crossed her mind, but once he put the thought there, it overwhelmed her.  She tore her mouth from his and pressed it to his neck instead.  His throat vibrated under her lips as he chuckled and tilted his head back. . . offering himself to her so she could become whole.

_I’ve purified my blood for you.  I’ve tamed myself for you, eaten every feather but one._

That stopped her.  Integra drew back and wiped her hand across her mouth.  It came away wet with saliva, but only that.

“All but one,” she repeated as she placed a fingertip over his lips.  “Shame on you for calling yourself pure.  That paradox—he’s the one you spared, isn’t he?  Because you wanted his power.  And now you tell me to drink your tainted blood.”

“Heh. . . .”  Alucard smiled beneath her touch.  “I would not offer it to you if it would poison you.  He is not in my blood.”

“But he _is_ in you, right?  Somewhere,” Integra pointed out with a tap to his forehead.  “I trust you, and your blood.  But I don’t want it right now.”

Alucard’s dismayed expression made her smile as she stood up.  He swept to his feet as well and sulked.

“You know you’ll have to drink blood sooner or later—and it should be mine!”

Now with some distance between them, Integra found it much easier to resist her desire for his blood—and, yes, for the rest of him.  Wanting _that_ troubled her more than craving blood did.

Integra huffed, “This—what I am doesn’t change my duties.  We still have work to do, so there’s not time now for—for that!”

“ _We_ have work?  Do you have an order for me?  A mission?”  When she glared at him, Alucard sneered, “You’re postponing the inevitable.  That isn’t like you.  You can’t tell me you weren’t prepared for this, Sir Integra—you even have your coffin ready, don’t you?”

She did, of course; it had been ready for years.  If any human could be completely prepared for turning, it would be she.  Even so. . . no human _could_ , and Alucard’s mockery hurt.

“I need time, Alucard!” Integra snapped.  “I need time to adjust.  If that leaves you disappointed in me, you’ll have to deal with it.”  As hard as she tried to bury her hurt in anger, Alucard felt it.  He still smiled, but it was the pretty smile again.

“I’m sorry.  I’d forgotten how it is.”  He went to her, although she still glared, and placed his hands on her shoulders.  “Take your time.  But I do have a request.”

“What,” she muttered.

“Make me your first.”  He looked at once affectionate, possessive, and so intent she couldn’t stay angry.

Integra arched one eyebrow and asked, “That’s rather vague.  My first _what?_ ”  Alucard grinned, not so prettily now.

“Your first taste of blood, of course.  Whatever were _you_ thinking of?”  He pulled her closer by her shoulders and murmured, “However, I do mean what I say. . . I do not want you to become a true vampire by anyone but me.”

Integra sighed, “Of course I won’t.  You fool, I didn’t wait this long to drink from just anybody.”

“Excellent!”  Alucard enveloped her in his arms and trapped her mouth in another kiss before he released her.  “Off to your work then, Sir Integra.  What needs doing that’s so important?”

“To begin with, I have to come up with a way to explain what’s become of me,” grumbled Integra.  “I can’t simply turn up to my appointments looking young again without answering questions.  And your return is still secret to all but a few as well!  I will have to hold a very uncomfortable conference soon, I suppose.”

“Heh, Hellsing’s pet vampire returns, and Sir Hellsing becomes one herself the next night?  Anyone with half a brain will understand the relationship between those two developments.”

“Yes, but both must be revealed tactfully!” she retorted.  “And it’s better that they’re revealed by me soon, before they can be spread by gossip!”

Alucard cocked his head and pointed out with a smirk, “We _could_ just leave—take our police girl and leave the council of humans to protect their own country.”

Integra gritted her teeth and despaired of a way to make her convictions clear to someone who had more or less _eaten_ his country.  Finally, she declared, “Even though I’m no longer human, it is still _my_ country, and I’ll wager Seras Victoria feels the same.  I’ve been preparing the council to take over after my death, but they aren’t ready yet.  I will not abandon my duty to them, or to England, King William, and God!”

“Ha!  My dear Master, even death cannot change you and your devotion to duty!  I love you all the more for it,” Alucard proclaimed.  Integra tried to quell the silly flutter she felt upon hearing him say it for the first time: _I love you._

Then he added, “But you are the tactician, not I, so I’ll take my leave for now.  You know where to find me when you begin to _hunger_.”  The way he leered at her implied he wasn’t speaking only of blood, no matter how much he denied it.

“You’re horrid—” Integra began, but Alucard vanished before she got any further.  She roared his name and received no response save the whisper of a thought: _My Countess. . . you’ll find me everywhere and nowhere._

\--

To be continued


End file.
